


front row tickets to my play

by hoodiestrings



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Please be nice, Soulmate AU, i am mostly experimenting so, kinda???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27724801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoodiestrings/pseuds/hoodiestrings
Summary: Phil has a front row ticket to his own life.or: the soulmate-non-soulmate-au no one asked for but i hope you will enjoy
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	front row tickets to my play

**Author's Note:**

> a big, big, BIG thank you to kat (@darlingdnp on twitter) as ALWAYS for proof-reading !!!
> 
> this is a new style and i am experimenting so please be nice lmao! hope you enjoy!!!

**act i.**

**a stormy night in manchester; 2012**

The flat is dark.

“Do you promise?” Dan says. Phil turns to look at him. He is curled in the corner of the sofa as if he would somehow appear smaller.

The storm is strong enough to knock the windows in their flat. They make a noise which makes them shiver. Or maybe it’s the cold. Maybe they’re just lonely. Phil sleeps in a double bed every night with his limbs sprawled apart and his chest is aching with the want to touch and hold. Dan. Only him. Always.

“ _Phil,_ ” his voice is high “ _Phil,_ do you?”

Phil looks out the window. He sees darkness and destruction, and realizes he would continue doing so, _without doubt,_ if it means keeping Dan safe.

Dan is on the verge of tears.

Phil smiles, “Always.”

  
  


When Phil was thirteen and scared, his mum cornered him in the kitchen. She never questioned him (not even years later, when she walked in on him and Dan kissing, just told them to come down to dinner). She, bless her, told him it’s easier sometimes to watch your own life like a play. 

Now Phil has a front ticket to his own life.  
  


**act ii.**

**abandoned hospital; 2009**

“Hey,” Phil takes Dan’s hands in his. The confession is still heavy in the air. 

Dan giggles, sharp and beautiful, “Hey.”

“Do you promise?” he asks, raises his hand and splays it across Dan’s shoulder where a mark should have been ( _should have been. should have – but isn’t)_. The words get caught in his throat but he doesn’t need to say them anyways. Dan understands, always understands; sometimes it feels like he is an ancient book with faded words, and only Dan could read them. Him.

Dan reaches for his hand, presses his lips to his knuckles.

“Always,” he smiles, his voice breathless.

And Phil thinks that maybe he is too young, but nothing has ever felt so sure. He wants to wake up to sleepy warm eyes and soft curls under his fingers, and he wants to fall asleep to gentle laughter and sleepy smiles. And everything in between. 

“Always,” he echoes.  
  


He got his always – Dan, for some reason, decided to spend his life with him. And the velvet box in his underwear drawer is sitting ready and patient – and he got everything that came with it. He got the highs and lows. He even got the _what do you mean you guys are not soulmates? Don’t you want to find them?_ And he knows it's all worth it because he has Dan.

Pj slinks up next to him, “Okay, what’s wrong? You have been staring at your wine glass for the past five minutes.”

Phil looks at him, then at Dan, his Dan. He looks especially stunning tonight, curls combed and a white suit tailored to perfection. He is already looking at Phil. He looks lost.

“It could be anyone, you know?” He says to Pj, and watches his mouth drop open from the corner of his eyes.

“He found his soulmate?” Pj whispers.

Phil smiles bitterly, “There is a mark, yeah.”  
  


**act iii.**

**a sunset in jamaica; 2010**

The sun is almost down. The sky looks pink. But Phil looks at Dan. He could never look at anything else.

“Race you,” Dan giggles, and then he is off before Phil can blink.

Phil rolls his eyes, “To where?!” he yells, but follows him nonetheless (sometimes he feels like he would follow Dan to the end of the world, follow him to the moon. Isn’t this what the stories describe soulmates as? Someone you love so much that you would give everything up for them?)

Dan stops twelve feet into the ocean and holds his arms out. Phil tackles him. He resurfaces a few seconds later, gasping for breath and a Dan on his hand, spitting curses at him.

“I wanted it to be _romantic!_ ” Dan whines, but there’s warmth in his eyes and his hands on Phil’s chest.

“Me too,” Phil grins, ducks when Dan raises a fist to smack him playfully.

They watch the sunset together. Dan would probably make fun of this later, say they are one of _those_ couple. And then he would blush and duck his head down, and Phil would be helpless to do anything except pull him in his arms and kiss him until his lips turn as red as his cheeks.

“If I meet my soulmate,” he promises “I will tell them I choose you.”

Dan’s eyes look a little wet. The sun is setting behind him, yet he is still the most beautiful view he has ever seen.

“Me too.”

  
  


Dan pushes his shoulder against him. The night is drawing to a close.

“Phil?”

Pj has slipped away somewhere, and Phil’s self-restraint is only so strong. Dan looks scared and worried, and there’s a crease between his eyebrows he wants to smooth down.  
  


**act iv.**

**a party; present**

“So,” he clears his throat. It’s hard to speak suddenly. “So who was it?”

But Dan only looks confused.

“Your soulmate,” Phil repeats, hold his breath “Who was it?”

“Oh,” Dan exhales, then huffs out a laugh. The crease on his forehead is gone suddenly. “ _Phil,”_ he says, like it holds a meaning. His fingers reach out and curl around his sleeve and Phil wants _nothing more_ to forget that everyone else exists. “ _Phil,_ is that why you’ve been acting so weird? I don’t _know_ \- I don’t know who it is.”

Phil blinks up at him almost owlishly.

“You don’t.”

Dan is grinning, “ _No._ I didn’t - I didn’t try to find them.”

And suddenly Phil is tearing himself away, “Why not?! Dan, it's your _soulmate._ Why wouldn’t you even -”

In 2011, when Phil asked Dan to move in with him, he had told him, _if I find my soulmate, I’ll tell them I chose you too._ Today, present, Dan - with the soulmate mark on his shoulder and a room full of possibilities of who it might be - reaches towards him, and says, “It doesn’t matter who my soulmate is. I’ll tell them I have already found mine. I choose you, Phil, I’ll always choose you - is that even a _question_?”

Phil inhales. 

“Dan,” he says, helpless, his voice trembling “Dan _,_ oh, _Dan._ ”

His eyes are brown and so, so soft. 

“Yeah?”

“Let's go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> please comment and tell me what you think! x


End file.
